UNCLE BEN KNEW IT THEN

Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

 Later he said:

 “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”

 Those two quotes about sum it up.

 Happy 237th birthday America. Ben would never recognize you, but he would have a certain perverse satisfaction in knowing just how right he was.

 Those on the left condemn corporations because of “corporate greed,” and yet that very greed of the populace, encouraged by all politicians and uber-encouraged by the left, that is altering our country forever.

 President Obama said he was going to “fundamentally transform this country.” He is not alone in transforming the country, he is just the first one to say it out loud and the one who, from what little he has let us know of his past, had profound transformation (Capitalism to… well… not capitalism) as a plan from the beginning. I believe the previous administrations took us blindly down the path of transformation to enhance their personal power with minimal concern over the desires and counsel of the founding fathers.

 The US is a very extraordinary Nation. It evolved out of the mistakes made in other societies. It evolved from those societies who suppressed individual freedoms and encouraged the power of the state. Human nature dictated the state suppressing an individual’s quest for freedom would not work in the long run. Our founding fathers knew that basic truth and wrote a document designed to insure a country where individual freedom had priority over the state, but they, at least Benjamin Franklin, also understood the dark, greedy side of human nature would eventually have its day, and that day is now, when we would slither back to that from which we came.

 The country our grandchildren will be celebrating on future July 4ths will be different. If you’re a conservative it will be bad different; if you’re a liberal it will be good different, but it will be different.

BLOODY AXES AND BUGGED PHONES

A typical Saturday night in Albuquerque, a gang drive by shooting highlights the evening.

I’m pretty sure our police gang unit knows who was involved, but since our laws lean so heavily in favor of the bad guys, the police may never be able to send them to the slammer unless one of them confesses, and only then after being read his rights, lefts and everything else that get in the way of speedy law enforcement.   Let me just dream a bit. What if, since the police are 90% sure who pulled the trigger, they grabbed this goober from his mother’s basement took him to the town square and chopped off his gun hand with a dull axe.  Do you believe random shootings would go down?  Try the same technique in the South Side of Chicago.

Of course we wouldn’t do that because our societal sense of decency and fairness outweighs our desire to reduce gun violence.  Bringing what we really want up to a conscious level is important because we always get what we want. We shout from the highest roof tops that what we want is to reduce gun violence, but what we really want is to enact laws that make it more difficult for the good guys to get guns, laws that make our lawmakers more reelectable, more feel good laws for the low information voters, and that’s just what we got while all the time saying we’re trying to reduce gun violence.  You really want to reduce gun violence get the axe ready.

How does this thinking fit in with one of the current administration’s “misunderstandings.”

"You can't have 100% security and also then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society." -President Obama on NSA surveillance controversy.

I agree with President Obama. (Like they say, “Even a blind pig roots up an acorn every once in awhile.”)   The war we are fighting now (or the philosophical difference we are having with radical Muslims, as the administration prefers to consider it) is different than any other conflict we have a ever had, and so out of the vision of our founding fathers we may have to, in this instance, stretch the limits of the Constitution.  We are no longer fighting a country, a geography or even a race of people. We are fighting a religious ideology.  We are all familiar with the weapons of past wars, and they were the best in the world at bringing an enemy country to its knees, rearranging geography and wiping out people. We had the most effective weapons when they were effective, but today’s major weapon for fighting today’s war is--Intelligence. With the right intelligence we can wipe out the enemy with a musket. 

We have the ability to profile the individual enemy, (if we can get by the ACLU), but even profiling is getting more and more difficult with the home grown variety terrorist. Bombs with the power of mega WW 2 bombs are crossing our borders in suitcases and crossing gullible minds on the Internet. I believe, as does my buddy Barack, that we are going to have to give up some of our freedom for safety. The debate, and it will be a heated one, will be on where is the line.  I believe at the end of the debate the line will have to be moved.  What will make moving the line so difficult will be the recent actions of the administration has created a real trust issue as to the ultimate use of the acquired information. Can we trust our government to use the information to help us or hurt us?  It’s a shame we have to consider that question, but we do.

We say we want an end to gun violence. We can get it with the hand chopping thing. We say we want safety. We can get it with a peeping Tom government.  Remember, we always get what we want.